Chubster

I was downright chubby for most of my childhood.  And although I’ve more or less managed my weight since, I am stocky and can be pushed over the edge to pudge in no time at all.  So losing weight and keeping it off is super tough.  I have always been jealous of friends that don’t seem to gain weight no matter how many buffets they hit.  Such was not my luck in life.

Why this monthly challenge?

Knowing this, and with the urgency of my sister’s March 29 wedding (and all the pictures) upon me, I decided that my first monthly challenge would be to juice for three weeks in order to detox, get healthy and lose weight.  (FYI, the idea behind my monthly challenges is that I will publicly challenge myself to something big that is designed to help me get better at savvy, global do-gooding in one way or another – some detox and weight loss through a different diet therefore fits the criteria.)

Since I started the challenge I have received advice for and against juicing (thanks everyone that gave me advice online and offline).  As mentioned in earlier posts, I soon switched from a purist juicing approach to a diet of smoothies.  The smoothies are more filling and contain the roughage I was missing with the juice and I have been able to integrate some protein in the form of protein shakes after resistance workouts and through nuts, tofu and other protein sources in the smoothies.

Setbacks

Some of the smoothies have been seriously disgusting.  I blended a whole beet into one smoothie and it was all I could do to control my gag reflex drinking that sucker all day at work.  I also messed up and went to shake it without realizing that I had neglected to screw the top on the canister down completely.  I got deep red beet juice all over my crisp white shirt.  As fate would have it I had a major community mixer to go to that night… I kept my cool and blotted the red out enough that it wouldn’t show with a jacket on.

Success

By day 5 or so I was getting the hang of the smoothie making and started enjoying the more palatable creations I was inventing.  I was also losing a near-alarming amount of weight, amounting to over a pound of weight loss per day. To date (and including my unofficial first day of the regimen) I’ve lost over 11 lbs.  As I sit writing this at almost midnight I am not at all hungry.  I have run over 6 miles today AND done some resistance training.  Because I have been putting away a serious amount of smoothies  – many with a major protein component – I’ve been able to slim down while toning up and actually (from what I can tell) gaining muscle.

The way ahead

I am hoping to get down to 170 lbs in time for the wedding which is in 18 days.  That is another 19 lbs from where I weighed in at this morning.  Impossible?  Maybe, but I will give it my best and keep you posted.

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Bjorn Karlman

For the first 20 years of my life I loved complaining about ugly Americans.  You know what I am talking about:  Arrogant.  Ignorant of the rest of the world.  Loud.  Barely unilingual.  Chasing a purely materialistic version of the American Dream.  The kind that believes that the answer to every diplomatic crisis is a healthy bombing.

Useless Critique

As much as I could list the faults of ugly Americans, I realized after moving to the United States, that as much as these tired talking points about ugly Americans may have been on point, harping on about them was helping nothing.

Qualities of the Beautiful American

So I started thinking about the future of the United States.  What would constitute a “beautiful American?”  Weren’t there already American models of: savvy, global do-gooding?  Could this behavior become sought after as the new American Dream?

I recently re-wrote, the About section (do check it out, it’s WAY more concise) of CultureMutt and I define the blog’s “savvy, global do-gooding” as boiling down to:

“… these three guiding principles:

1) You are happiest when you are helping others.

2) The best kind of adventure is found in international do-gooding.

3) To be of service internationally you have to first understand people and cultures.”

Just as it is true that the ugly American is truly horrendous, the beautiful American, as defined by a willingness to help others through international, culturally-appropriate service, is genuinely impressive and has always been around.

I recently heard a definition of art as being “that which chases away ugliness”.  Let’s dedicate ourselves to chasing away the ugliness in American society.  It’s time to build on what is beautiful.  Let’s welcome in the era of the Beautiful American.

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Bjorn Karlman

some volunteer friends pretending to pass out after feasting in a Seoul restaurant

There is something seriously refreshing about service-minded globetrotters.  Some of the best people I have ever met, I have gotten to know on campuses and other outposts around the world.  They have generally been volunteers of some kind or people working for nonprofits.  Once you take away money as the main motivator in people’s lives and add a love for global travel in its place, people tend to really blossom into amazing human beings.   They just seem to automatically sound more interesting, more fun and better rounded.  They have real spark and a definite energy about them.  It’s incredible and I always enjoy meeting them.

I’ve often tried to work out what it is that makes these globe trotters tick.  Here are a few things that I have observed:

1) They see the bigger picture

I remember skiing with a guy in Northern Sweden who was convinced that he would never need to learn English.  I was 16 at the time but I still felt like the guy needed to travel a little and expand his understanding of the world.  The tragedy is that he may actually have been right.  If you stay in the same place your whole life, you may not need to grow and develop into an informed world citizen.  But you miss so much by this kind of complacency.  Those that travel are almost automatically more open minded, tolerant, understanding and more likely to see the bigger picture.  This is a very valuable quality.  Getting stuck in provincial nit-picking bickering is highly unattractive and a waste of time.

2) They are more curious – Travel – specifically service-minded travel – grows you as a human being.  It specifically grows your mind and forces you to ask questions – both of yourself and of those around you.  You discover more ways of being human.  You learn that there are different and often better ways of doing things.  You discover the beauty of other cultures and ways of seeing life.  It is exciting and drives you to learn more and more.  As you try to help people from other places, you yourself grow – it is always a two-way street. 

3) They are flexible – Anyone who has traveled extensively or done service-related work oversees knows that in order to be happy you have got to learn to be flexible.  You do give up a lot of c0ntrol in travel.  That is part of the beauty.  New environments will often mean an unpredictable schedule, re-written rules and a lot of other situations forcing you out of your comfort zone.  It is here that the seasoned international do-gooder adapts and stretches – it is healthy and a very positive thing.

4) They love the unknown – One step further than learning flexibility is actually learning to love the unknown. I find that seasoned service-minded relocators actually relish the adventure and growth that comes from deliberately tackling more of the unknown than most will see.  A foreign environment keeps you on your toes because you are constantly exploring and learning.  What lies ahead is unknown and with practice you can learn to see this for the excellent, suspense-filled growth opportunity it brings  rather than mourning the loss of the familiar.

A service mindset, powered by global travel has incredible power to make you a better, more interesting and exciting individual.  Why delay?  Find a cause, find a location and make the jump.  The world and you yourself will be better for it.

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Bjorn Karlman

As much as the intent of CultureMutt is to be stunningly international in its scope on global do-gooding, once in a while it helps to have a look at something happening at home.  As home for me now is an oft-forgotten corner of inland Northern California (read: cow fields), the likelihood of something dramatic and newsworthy happening is next to nil.  To shake things up a little, I decided to reignite my long-neglected urges to do something service-related locally by clinking shovels with a few friends and building a fence for a 30-something woman with cancer.

It sounded magnanimous and simple enough: Tear down the old fence she had and erect a fresh one. Well, for starters, the day was overcast and two hours before the project began there was a life-sucking drizzle that freed me of any enthusiasm I had generated about the project.  I texted the team lead, Matt, the following:  “Pretty steady rain/drizzle in Chico.. I am still game but I just wanted to give you the heads up.”  I was hoping that this text would cancel the project.

No suck luck – Matt texted back: “K, satellite makes it look like it will let up soon.” Uggghh.  We were still on.  I rolled in to the work site about 15 minutes late and apologetically got situated.  Luckily I was the only one with refreshments and the day-old muffins and partly-consumed white grape juice redeemed me in the eyes of the already-muddy crew.

The work itself was seriously crappy.  There was no end of rotten wood and other assorted debris to transport from a backyard with very poor access to the too-small trailer behind my friend’s truck. Remember – this was just the prep work. Whether out of guilt or concern that we would trash his yard, the neighbor of the woman in concern emerged after about an hour and started helping us. An hour later his wife joined him.  Good thing to. We trashed their driveway in the process of dragging fence remains to our trailer and they did most of the mind-numbing cleanup.

The work got interesting around the time we started digging out the cement foundations of the old fence. Matt took a sledge hammer to a clump of cement to break it into bits that would be easier to carry. He lunged at it so hard that he threw his back out.  That is when he was mounted on to the back stretcher in the above video… it was priceless.  Suddenly the work site seemed so much less dreary.  There was always Matt to make fun of.

Another wonderful moment was lunch.  I was shepherding disabled Matt around Chipotle and the local college crowd gave him all the right looks. He took it like a man… like an 88 year-old arthritic man without his walking stick… I loved every moment. I carried his tray for him. Beautiful.

After lunch, half the crew left and myself and just a few of the faithful few remained, grimly mixing and pouring concrete into holes that had taken hours to dig. Matt directed our band of fed up, shivering do-gooders until we had placed most of the fence posts. We were all relieved to call it a day soon after.  The new fence recipient came out to admire our work towards the end and it felt good to have made some progress. There’s still work to be done – not one panel had gone up yet… But hey, Matt can always go and finish that up.

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Bjorn Karlman